Why a renewable city

Vancouver has grown over the years and now uses over 61 million gigajoules of energy a year.

Since Vancouver was founded in 1886, it has grown into a world-class city that now use over 61 million gigajoules (GJ) of energy a year—that’s enough energy to get to the moon and back 1,500 times—and releases 2.4 million tonnes of CO2 as a result.

To improve the standard of living for everyone in our city, we must transform so that our city gets 100% of our energy from renewable sources.

Energy use

Our energy use is currently 31% renewable, with the remaining fossil fuel fraction dominated by:

Why we need to change

Fossil fuels can no longer be relied upon to provide the benefits they have in the past. We can either postpone action and play catch-up at a later date, or act now to enhance our quality of life, improve equity and make Vancouver more economically strong.